The Corporate Renewables March Continues: Amazon and GM Announce New Deals

Stephen Lacey is the Editor-in-Chief of Greentech Media. He manages a team of writers focused on solar, storage, efficiency, mobility, and grid modernization. He is producer/host of The Energy Gang and Interchange podcasts, two leading interview and analysis shows on the business of energy and cleantech.

General Motors Co. said Wednesday it is committing to power all of its global operations completely by renewable energy by 2050.

The Detroit automaker said its goal is to generate or source electrical power for 350 facilities in 59 countries with renewable wind, sun and landfill gas energy during the next three-plus decades. This year, GM expects to have 3.8 percent of electricity use come from renewable resources.

“Establishing a 100 percent renewable energy goal helps us better serve society by reducing environmental impact,” GM Chairwoman and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “This pursuit of renewable energy benefits our customers and communities through cleaner air while strengthening our business through lower and more stable energy costs.”

Though the majority of Amazon Inc.'s recent renewable energy deals have been inked through its cloud computing segment, Amazon Web Services, the parent company announced its very own deal on September 15.

The e-commerce giant is planning to purchase approximately 90% of the power generated from a new 253 MW wind farm being built in Scurry County, Texas, Amazon said in a news release. The facility, named "Amazon Wind Farm Texas," will generate 1,000,000 MWh of wind energy annually from more than 100 turbines. Set to begin operations in late 2017, the wind farm will be Amazon's largest renewable energy project to-date.

A proposal to grandfather in existing residential rooftop solar customers under prior, more favorable utility rates for 20 years appears to be a case of very good timing.

The same day the various parties in the debate agreed on a proposal to grant relief to as many as 32,000 residential net metering customers, a Carson City district judge weighed in on the issue.

In his court order dated Monday, District Judge James Wilson set aside the original orders drafted by the Public Utilities Commission that imposed the new rate structure on existing net metering customers, finding that the orders violated constitutional and statutory requirements and were made on unlawful procedure.

Don’t count on a big rally in crude oil, said Jeff Currie, head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Or any rally, for that matter.

Two years into an oil rout that saw West Texas Intermediate oil fall to about $26 a barrel in February, the risk is “to the downside” because there aren’t any clear catalysts to push up prices, Currie said in an interview in Lake Louise, Alberta. For the next 12 months, he said, oil is likely to trade in the $45 to $50 range.

In the 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama set an ambitious goal to put 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 -- a milestone seen as unlikely but technically achievable at the time. As of now, we’re only halfway there. But this year’s sales figures give reason for fresh optimism about the future of EVs in the United States.

In 2016, EV sales are surging, even as gasoline prices languish and overall auto sales are down year-over-year. Coinciding with the sales surge, major news outlets that have been skeptical of EVs have been shifting their tone in recent weeks, potentially signaling a greater cultural acceptance of the technology.